Technical Field
This invention relates to the field of computer networks and, more particularly, to efficient transfer of data over a network.
Description of the Related Art
As computer memory storage and data bandwidth increase, so does the amount and complexity of data that businesses daily manage. A large portion of the data may include electronic documents, announcements, tasks, discussion topics, and so forth. Depending on the business value of this information, access to certain information may be secure and private. The contents of information servers and end-user systems may be backed up to a backup storage to prevent loss of data, especially for data identified as crucial data. In such a case, a dedicated server and storage subsystem may include a backup system.
Administering and supporting an information technology (IT) infrastructure on a large number of end-user systems presents a significant challenge. Generally speaking, an IT administrator develops a management system for data backup and data protection; data recovery, restore, and restart; archiving and long-term retention; and day-to-day processes and procedures necessary to manage a storage architecture. This management system includes strategies and policies for administering storage systems on computing devices. For example, a backup image may be automatically replicated or migrated from one location to a storage device at another location. This migration may be referred to as duplication of the backup image.
In some cases, the transfer of data from the backup server to the storage devices may be through a Fibre Channel (FC) link. A FC network protocol is generally implemented when a business accesses a large amount of information over SANs, mail servers, file servers and large databases. In addition, server virtualization is increasingly used. For example, hypervisors are able to provide guest operating systems with virtualized storage, accessible through a Fibre Channel network infrastructure. Additionally, an Ethernet protocol may be used to transfer information over global distances, to remote sites, or in clustered, low-latency compute environments. For example, the migration of a backup image from one backup server to a second backup server may utilize an Ethernet network.
As noted above, in some computing environments organizations may seek to replicate data from one location to another remote location over a network. For example, a backup from one location to a remote location may be desired. In such an environment, network latencies can have a serious impact on the performance of the replication process. Such network latencies may be due to propagation delay, network congestion, and/or processing delays. In some cases, the latency may be such that performance falls below what is desired or otherwise expected.
In view of the above, improved systems and methods for efficient transfer of data over a network are desired.